A California dad murdered his three young children inside their home during a “horrific” domestic violence incident with his wife, cops said.

Robert Hodges, 33, was arrested Thursday around midnight after allegedly killing the kids inside the family’s West Sacramento apartment, according KCRA.

He reportedly fled the residence and was taken into custody without incident by California Highway Patrol officers in neighboring Sacramento.

Hodges had been fighting with his wife, who has not been named by police, just before the slayings. Officials said the woman was “in close proximity” to him when he took their children’s lives.

“Obviously, she’s traumatized, and it’s going to take some time to find out what’s going on,” West Sacramento police Sgt. Roger Kinney explained at a press conference.

“Something like this is very disturbing,” he said. “The officers are absolutely impacted, along with the firefighters, and certainly the family, the neighbors. This call is going to have quite a bit of emotion. It’s horrific, and it’s very difficult to deal with. This is going to take not hours, not days, it’s going to take a long time to come to grips with what happened there.”

While police have not released the ages or genders of Hodges’ kids, the children’s great-grandmother — Irene Aiello of West Sacramento — told the Associated Press that Hodges and his wife had an 11-year-old boy, a 9-year-old girl and another boy who was born in January.

Candles and stuffed animals at a makeshift memorial outside the apartment where the murders took placeAP

“We don’t understand what happened, we really don’t,” Aiello said, claiming that “everything appeared to be OK” between the couple.

Authorities have not released any details about how the children were killed or the weapon that was used.

Neighbors were reportedly the ones to call 911 to report the domestic violence incident Wednesday. Investigators have been looking into whether there was a history of domestic disputes between Hodges and his wife, but residents say there were no signs of violence.